


Kicked Your Gift-Horse In The Teeth

by ishie



Category: Community
Genre: F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-27
Updated: 2011-03-27
Packaged: 2017-10-17 08:06:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/pseuds/ishie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As it turned out, making it in Hollywood kind of sucked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kicked Your Gift-Horse In The Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Written for fujiidom's donation for [Words for Relief](http://allthingsholy.livejournal.com/147648.html). She asked for Troy/Annie or Troy/Annie/Abed future fic and this sort of fell out instead. Hope you like it, bb!
> 
> Title is from Van Morrison's Talk Is Cheap. Muchas gracias to jazzfic for the super-fast beta!

As it turned out, making it in Hollywood kind of sucked.

 

 

"Pens," Abed said. His index finger twirled through the air as he turned in a circle like a TV detective. "I just had them."

Troy finished pouring himself a new cup of coffee. The pens were right where Abed had left them: next to the plate of slowly congealing eggs he abandoned when his assistant called. It wouldn't take long for Abed to remember where he'd left them, but Troy wasn't above playing dumb to squeeze another minute out of the day before they went their separate ways. Even though they lived and worked in the same places, sometimes it felt like entire weeks passed in which they didn't talk about anything but casting sessions and last-minute rewrites.

Their lives were supposed to be awesome: getting invited to non-stop parties, dating dizzyingly hot starlets, hanging out with his BFF while they worked.

The parties were non-existent for anyone below the C-list, apparently, and together he and Abed only barely qualified for entrance to the Y. And instead of a string of leggy "it" girls, his dating history was more hit or miss. Mostly miss. He just couldn't figure out how to talk to girls in LA, which was crazy because it seemed like all anybody else—read: Abed—had to do was say they worked on a hit show.

His latest hookup had been a trainer at his gym. Rebecca. She flirted over the free weights and practically jumped him when he stepped out of the locker room one afternoon. Drinks and an untouched appetizer later, they were racing back to his house with her hand creeping up his thigh. He thought everything was going great, right up until she couldn't get out of his bedroom fast enough when he tried to cuddle afterward. Not that he blamed her. His crying was getting out of control.

As for hanging out with his BFF... He couldn't figure out where to start on that one.

 

 

Two weeks after graduation, they flew out to Los Angeles for meetings with a producer who wanted to option @oldwhitemansays. Troy sat in the window seat.

He watched thousands, maybe millions, of houses roll into view underneath them. Big ones, little ones, all marching neatly up and down streets that sometimes twisted and turned along canyons, up and down hills. He wondered about the people in them, how many were as excited and scared as he was. How many were living their dream, or parts of it, anyway. Good parts, that maybe they didn't know they wanted at first but now that they were within reach they wanted to grab on with both hands and never let go.

The study group—okay, Annie—put together a care package for them to carry to California, full of local snacks and postcards from the campus bookstore with inspirational quotes neatly printed across the back. Troy hugged the bag closer as the pilot announced their approach into the greater Los Angeles area. His stomach flip-flopped, though he couldn't tell whether it was because of too many brownies or nerves.

Tiny cars zipped around trees with tops like broccoli, patchwork lawns of bright green and dull yellow grass. A brown haze lingered at the horizon as they started to descend, as if it marked the line between real and imaginary. It all looked like a train set come to life, something Mr Rogers built behind his house and forgot to water in one of Troy's dreams.

Abed slept until the pilot turned off the fasten seatbelt sign.

 

 

Annie was the only one who really kept in touch after the first couple of months. Not that he blamed anybody; he knew how busy their lives were just from the snippets Annie passed on about all of them. She was better than his mom, even, at keeping him supplied with the latest news.

Of course, she expected him to reciprocate.

"No Abeds not dating Emma Stone," he told her over IM one sunny afternoon when he was supposed to be working on his first solo script. Instead, he'd spent most of the day pacing back and forth until stark, staring panic drove him back to his laptop to peck out a few paltry sentences before turning to his Tumblr dash and Gmail. "Shes gonna play Steves daughter for sweeps."

 **Annie Edison:** Troy  
 **Annie Edison:** :(  
 **Annie Edison:** You have to use *SPOILER ALERT*!!!

 

 

Abed and Troy shared one of the houses Troy had seen from the plane, or so he liked to think.

Some people thought it was weird, the two of them living together. Mostly Shirley and Nana, but Jeff had given them some funny looks too the one time he came out to visit. It just made the most sense, though, for both of them. They hit the ground running almost as soon as the ink was dry on their studio and network contracts, with barely enough time to feed themselves let alone look for alternative living arrangements. Once things evened out, it seemed like a waste of time and effort when they already had a great place and a system that worked for them both.

The house was spacious, with lots of white walls and pale wooden floors. The kitchen was like the stomach of the place—they had to pass through it to get from the front of the house to the backyard, and to go between their separate sides of the house. Although, for the first six months they were in LA, they'd spent more nights on the couches in front of Abed's tricked-out media center than not.

Floor to ceiling windows lined the entire back of the house, looking out over a kidney-shaped pool and the privacy fence that didn't make much private at all based on the photos that turned up after the first season's wrap party.

"Don't worry about it," Abed said. "It's a classic Hollywood rite of passage."

But it wasn't, not for Troy. He was just a name on the credits, Created by Abed Nadir & Troy Barnes, second alphabetically because that was the way the rock-paper-scissors landed. He wasn't famous. He wasn't even really that rich. There was a nice check every month from the studio but most of that went right back into the house and the car.

Troy doubted any of the cast even knew his name. Steve Martin sure didn't, not even after more than forty episodes and who even knew how often he'd re-introduced himself. Every time he stepped out of his office on the lot, or their paths crossed in the office, or onstage, Steve sent him on errands and called him Terrence. Once, early in the first season, he'd even made Troy drive him to a music shop in Flintridge to pick up some special kind of banjo rosin that was only available once every ten years. Or something. Troy spent most of the day in an ecstasy of terror that he'd cripple or lose or piss off the star of their show and get sent packing back to Colorado.

"Once they see how boring we are, they'll leave us alone," Abed had promised, as he folded up the magazine and slid it into the trash can. "Don't worry about it. Seriously."

But he did worry about it. It took the better part of two years before he stopped checking to make sure all the curtains were drawn every time he did so much as slip off his shoes.

 

 

"I've been thinking about going home," he told Abed over breakfast. "To Greendale. See my nana."

It had been on his mind for a while, taking some time away, visiting with family to remember what life was like before fame and fortune came knocking. It wasn't until he heard himself say it out loud that he realized there never was a decision to make. He had to go, or he was going to go crazy. Everything in California was too bright, too shiny, too fast and confusing and, and soulless. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a conversation with anyone that had nothing to do with ratings or market shares or agents.

"Cool," Abed said. He slurped at a glass of orange juice and kept scrolling through email on his phone.

"Do you want to go with me? Maybe?"

"What?"

"We could make it like a reunion or something, you know? We've got a couple of weeks open in the production schedule and the baby just started kindergarten, so even Shirley would have time to hang out."

The words were coming out of his mouth just as soon as they bubbled up in his brain, but a reunion did sound pretty good. No matter what they all told each other at graduation, texting and email and the occasional Skype when everyone was in between their comings and goings—it was nice to act like nothing had changed but it just wasn't the same. The time between messages got longer and longer, until it seemed all they did was text each other about how much they needed to catch up. Next time I have time was the best he could hope for most of the time.

If it weren't for Annie's constant presence in a Gchat window and the semi-annual care packages she sent, he'd never talk to anyone from back home. His own sister waited until her boyfriend popped the question to even mention that she was dating a new guy.

Troy missed everything about home, but he especially missed the smell of Shirley's perfume, powdery and sweet. The sound Britta made when no one was paying attention to her. The click of Jeff's teeth when he got bored, the nudges Pierce sometimes threw into his side, the way Annie's voice squeaked when she had new gossip. The way she shook out her hair when she wanted to look serious and shotgunned sugary sodas late in the afternoon when she needed a jolt of energy.

It was kind of weird how much he missed Annie. Not as weird as missing the smell of Pierce's house, like old people's socks and Thousand Island dressing no matter how much Febreze he used, but still.

Abed's face clouded. He looked up at the ceiling like he was trying to remember something that he'd misfiled. "Isn't Britta in Austin?"

"That was last month," Troy said. He pushed his fork through the syrup puddling on his plate. "Forget it, it was a stupid idea. I'll just go by myself."

 

 

"Are you sure about this? I mean, that's why you went all the way out there to Los Angeles, right? To do the show."

Thousands of miles had been enough to mask the worry in Annie's voice during most of their conversations over the years. Or, at least, to let Troy pretend he didn't hear it.

He liked to imagine her sitting behind a succession of desks as she worked her way up the administrative ladder. Everything would be neatly in its place, color-coded files tucked away in discreet cabinets. She would frown out a window while she tried to stay a step ahead of whatever Troy was telling her.

In person, it was more than a little distracting to see the wrinkle that popped up between her eyebrows, and the way she kept tucking her hair behind her ear while she listened to him.

It was a lot distracting, actually.

"It's just... It's not what I expected, you know? Abed's totally a natural at all of it but I have no idea what I'm doing."

Annie made a dismayed noise and leaned in to lay her hand on his arm, just above the cuff of his shirt. "That's not true! I really liked the episode you wrote last season, where everyone winds up falling in the pool. It was so funny!"

Troy froze. An inexplicable blush crept up his neck, just from the weight of her hand apparently, until she lifted it and tucked her hair behind her ear again. He cleared his throat and picked at the peeling label on his beer bottle. "Yeah, I didn't really write that. I came up with the idea about the stalker after Chang somehow got our phone numbers but everything else came from the room."

"Oh."

"And the pool stuff was all Abed."

"Oh."

In the long pause before she spoke again, Troy almost forgot what they were talking about. It looked like Annie had finally retired the Disney Princess face. In its place, she kept biting down on her bottom lip and looking at him through her lashes. He cleared his throat again and signaled their waitress for another round.

Annie shook herself and straightened the hem of her skirt, pleating some of the fabric between her fingers.

"Well, I can't believe I'm saying this," she said in a rush, "but maybe you should quit. I mean, it's not like money's a problem, not with what you guys make. You could even see if he'd still be okay with being roommates so you don't have to move. And you said Abed wanted to interview new writers over the hiatus anyway, right? So it's not like you'd be leaving him in the lurch or anything."

It was exactly what he needed to hear, and the last thing he wanted to hear. It was like she'd seen right into his head and picked off every half-hearted objection he'd been making. Which, if he was honest, was the biggest part of why he'd called her from the departures lounge at LAX to ask her to meet him for a drink almost as soon as his plane landed in Denver. It wasn't fair to her but Troy knew that if anyone could figure out a way for him to lose the job but keep his best friend and to stop crying with frustration at traffic lights, it would be Annie.

Not that she knew about the traffic lights. He did still have some dignity.

The smaller part of why he'd asked her, the part he had to tell to shut up every time she pushed her hair back to reveal the soft pink curve of her ear and the sweep of her neck...

He really needed to stop thinking about that part.

 

 

Three drinks later, when Annie's hand landed on his arm, Troy covered it with one of his own.

"So if you don't want to be a TV writer," she said, leaning close enough that the ends of her hair tickled against the back of his hand, "what do you want to do?"

Right that minute? There was a lot he wanted to do. Not for the first time, he wondered what her feelings were on bu—

"Are you going to go back to teaching? You could get your license in California pretty easy. I looked it up once online and— What?"

"Nothing! It's just, I don't know. I guess I haven't really thought about it that far ahead."

Her eyes rounded in surprise. "You have to! You can't just wander around hoping stuff's going to fall in your lap, you know."

Troy did know but as a strategy it had worked pretty well for him in the past. First the football scholarship, and when that was gone, he landed smack in the middle of the best group of friends he'd ever had, all because Jeff had such a hard-on for Britta. Pierce stepped up with nearly free room and board when he needed a place to stay. Then when school was wrapping up and he was starting to get nervous about taking his first teaching position, Hollywood came calling and offered an escape to a glamorous new life. That it hadn't turned out to be all it was cracked up to be was more his fault than anything else, he was sure.

But he couldn't say that to Annie, who worked harder than five other people combined for everything she had. In only four years at the Windy Ridge retirement village, they had already promoted her up to being a senior administrator. If she waited for things to happen to her instead of the other way around, she would still be living above Dildopolis and pining after him, for all he knew. But that bridge had sailed, long before he'd even known it was there.

"Besides," she said, her eyes dipping down to look at the table instead of him again, "you're so good with kids. You'd be a great teacher."

Her voice softened as she said it, making her sound more like the girl he remembered from Riverside High than she had in years. Troy turned her hand over in his, pressing their palms together.

"You think so?" he asked, more for something to say that would keep him from blurting out other, more embarrassing questions.

"Yeah," she said, her eyes brightening even more in the dim light of the bar. "I always thought so, even when you didn't."

 

 

He didn't actually make it to Nana's house until the morning he was supposed to fly back to California.

As it turned out, Annie's voice didn't just go squeaky when she had new gossip to share.

 

 

She was also really good at drafting resignation letters.

 

 

"So, that's it. It's time for me to move on."

Abed didn't say anything, just pulled Troy's resignation letter closer. He ducked his head and read the words Troy had just spoken aloud.

It wasn't exactly the reaction Troy was expecting. Not that he was expecting anything in particular, but the silence was unnerving. "Are you okay with this?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Abed folded up the letter and tucked it back into the envelope. It went into the tray where he left signed contracts for his assistant, then he folded his hands and cocked his head. "Or is this a Jerry Maguire? Should I get the fish?"

"No, this is... This is for real, Abed. I just can't anymore."

"Okay."

"That's it?"

Abed shrugged. "You're not happy. Something else might make you happy. You should be happy. So, you have to go. It's not complicated."

It felt complicated. Troy had spent years worrying about how complicated it all was, how he couldn't let his friend down. How he couldn't let himself down.

It was kind of embarrassing that he was the last one to figure out that he'd been doing just that the whole time.

 

 

There was no announcement to the cast and crew, just a quiet email that went out after most of the teams left for hiatus. For the few who remained on the lot, breaking down the standing sets they'd deemed unnecessary for the following season and working on post for the last episodes of the season, there was a pizza and beer send-off that left Troy drunkenly reciting his high school football stats to a roll of gaffer's tape for half an hour.

Abed's assistant fielded a few calls from media outlets asking for a comment or a statement from or about Troy. A couple of TV critics who'd been friendly to the show sent emails, offering condolences, congratulations, and requests for quickie interviews. Somehow he managed to avoid all of that but got roped into a Q&A conference call with half the staff of the Greendale Gazette Journal Mirror that went to a really weird place once the Dean got on the line.

For a couple of weeks after the interview went up on Greendale's website and got picked up by every single fansite the show had ever amassed, runners from the studio dropped off gift baskets from some of the more dedicated fans, including a few disturbing proposals for how he could spend his new free time. Way too many of them suggested he look into a change of career as a professional mascot.

Annie sent a packet of applications for a California provisional teaching license, with his name already printed in the appropriate fields in her neat handwriting.

At the bottom of the stack was a renewal form for Colorado.


End file.
